


Prophetic Dream

by thereisaredeemer



Series: Unamis...Chingachgook...Uncas.... [2]
Category: The Last of the Mohicans - James Fenimore Cooper
Genre: Cross-Posted on FanFiction.Net, Dreams, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-07
Updated: 2020-11-07
Packaged: 2021-03-09 00:02:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,387
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27425389
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thereisaredeemer/pseuds/thereisaredeemer
Summary: After several nights without rest my limbs are dead and sleep comes to me quickly. As I drift off amid the ruckus caused by the injured singer's snores and the gentle music of the stream, I see a sunlit dell in which grows many flowers...
Relationships: Cora Munro/Uncas
Series: Unamis...Chingachgook...Uncas.... [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2050656
Kudos: 1





	Prophetic Dream

The spring, which many long years ago had induced my fathers to select the place for their temporary fortification, is soon clear of leaves, and a fountain of clean, clear, and cold, water gushes from the bed, diffusing over the grassy hillock. I plunge my hand into the flow and an inadvertent shiver runs up my arm. Flexing my fingers beneath the surface, I pick out the small pebbles and skim them over the small pool of ever moving water. Raising my gaze from the leafy ground, I find my father and Hawkeye roofing a corner of the log-building in such a manner as to exclude the heavy dew that would descend in the early morning. Rising to my feet I begin to gather piles of sweet shrubs and dried leaves and lay them beneath the covering for the sisters to sleep upon.

Every so often I flick my sharp gaze to the place where the two women, Cora and Alice, sit partaking of their dinner which duty required much more than inclination prompted them to accept. The dark-haired one was alert and had seated herself in such a way as to be able to rise in a moments notice. She seems to me to eat less than her lightly complected sister. Alice is but a child. She cowers beside her elder sister and speaks in a hushed whisper. The English major who sits with them murmurs to her from time to time, but his words do not affect her as he would have wished and it shows on his countenance.

As the last light flees and all becomes dim, the sisters rise and retire within the walls of the rotting structure. As they enter the gloomy place I slip out and begin to begin to refresh myself with parched corn and the now cold venison. Wafting out of the shelter I hear the voices of the women and offering up their thanksgivings to their God for past mercies, and petitioning for a continuance of the divine protection throughout the coming night. Then there is silence.

The singer sleeps feverishly, but as I check his wound I find it healing well considering the constant action and little sleep he has endured these past few days. I leave him in peace.

Through the darkening shadows I see the red-coated white-man seat himself just without the log ruin, but Hawkeye, perceiving his intention to stand watch, points towards my father, Chingachgook who has seated himself at the foot of a tall hemlock, as he coolly disposes his own person on the grass, and says—

"The eyes of a white man are too heavy and too blind for such a watch as this! The Mohican will be our sentinel, therefore let us sleep."

"I proved myself a sluggard on my post during the past night," argues the light haired man, "and have less need of repose than you, who did more credit to the character of a soldier. Let all the party seek their rest, then, while I hold guard."

Deciding to take my own repose, I throw myself down on the side of the hillock. Beside my head the fountain gurgles a lullaby as it runs over its rough bed.

"If we lay among the white tents of the 60th, and in front of an enemy like the French, I could not ask for a better watchman," returns Hawkeye in his stubborn way; "but in the darkness and among the signs of the wilderness your judgment would be like the folly of a child, and your vigilance thrown away. Do then, like Uncas and myself, sleep, and sleep in safety."

After several nights without rest my limbs are dead and sleep comes to me quickly. As I drift off amid the ruckus caused by the injured singer's snores and the gentle music of the stream, _I see a sunlit dell in which grows many flowers. I spin slowly to appreciate it, taking in the various sights and smells. The swaying grass, the shifting light that filters through the trees at the edge of the small clearing, the lazy scent of summer and the wind off the far-off sea. I crane my neck back and gaze into the deep clear blue sky. High above, the birds ride the swift air currents and wheel listlessly as they hunt._

_In the dream I turn my head directly up to the sun. In the midst of the small, golden-white burning orb I see a woman's red-bronze face smiling down upon me. It is my mother's face. She looks down on me lovingly and a sad smile curves her lips. As I drink her in, she parts her lips. In a haunting voice she begins to sing, and her song is like none I have ever heard before. The wind whispers it and the tree limbs make its sorrowful melody._

_"The sun is now setting over the hills;_

_The river runs blood in the glen;_

_Cold are the tribesmen never to see._

_The pride of the Wapanachki is dead!_

_"The voice is silent that once cried for war;_

_The brave one who battled is gone;_

_The squaws cry, 'Revenge him!'_

_The pride of the Wapanachki is dead!"_

_I turn away with eyes brimming with tears, which I cannot account for, as the notes die away. The soft, warm breeze kisses my sun-darkened temples and my mother's prophetic song thrums in my veins. The tears slip down my dark cheeks and a longing for something unattainable gives me physical pain. I shut my eyes against at all. I cannot bear the pain of loss. The memory of my mother's death is not something I care to relive. A soft, uncalloused hand caresses my bare shoulder, and traces the scars which lie there._

_"Why do you weep?" A soft voice breathes near my ear. A second hand reaches up and wipes my tears away, but lingers to cup my face. "Tell me, please. Uncas, let me bear it with you."_

_I do not recognize the voice nor the elegantly shaped hand, but my spirit seems to reach out to both. I open my eyes and gaze at the pale maiden before me. Her dark hair lies about her shoulders and cascades down to her waist. Her brown eyes are worried—she seems to grow out from the trees and the grasses. Fiercely, instinctively, I press her hand to my lips._

_"Uncas," she murmurs again and I know her. She is Cora—the woman who was too proud and too honest to allow a stranger offer to give his life for her's, even if it could have saved her. Cora—the woman whose love for her sister knew no bounds. Cora—the woman whom I love._

_"Cora," I answer, and then I kiss her, but I only allow myself a fleeting touch of the lips before I step back to hold her at arms length. The wind brushes the hair back from her eyes and sways her cotton skirts. A smile lights up her face and the sun makes her black tresses shine like waters of the Hudson at noonday._

_"Why were you weeping, my chief?"_

_I still watch her wonderingly, but I answer, "I wept because I was alone. You are here with me now and I have no reason for sorrow."_

_I smile down at her and release her shoulders. Cora takes my hand and leads me through the trees. Then the dream changes and we are no longer in the dell, I stand on a cold, wind-whiped mountainside. Far ahead of me I see Cora who struggles against Mingo captors, who are dragging her with them. Below me I hear screams as women and children are slaughtered, but they are my enemies, I do not aide them._

_I leap from crag to crag, never faltering in my steps, always with one thought in the forefront of my mind: Cora._

_At last I reach her, but even as I jump, she falls wounded fatally. My tomahawk and long-knife are my sole weapons, but with them I cut down all six men. I fall heavily to my knees beside her crumpled form._

_"Cora! Cora, answer me!" I cry franticly._

_She moans and turns her face to me, "Uncas…" then her eyes widen with fear, "No! Have mercy Huron and you will receive it! Do not strike—"_

_I touch her neck about to tell her that her enemies are vanquished when I feel cold steel slip between my ribs—once, twice, three times._

_"Your dog is dead now woman! What have you left? You will die here before the sun sets and the ravens will pick your flesh from your bones!" Magua exalts with contempt._

_But I am not dead. I turn my head to him, and Killdeer cracks. He falls like a stone. Then I am pulled from my body and I watch the scene from the ledge above. I watch myself turn back to Cora and grasp her hand. I see myself fall forward as my cherry-red blood gushes out. Then Hawkeye and the major run up only to fall to their knees._

_Cora and I are dead._

_"See, this is what shall come to pass if you love me."_

_I turn and see Cora standing beside me. In confusion I glance back to her broken form on the earth some nine feet below us. Still staring at her corpse I ask rawly, "Would my indifference prevent your death?"_

_Her warm hand slips into mine. "No. But you would still live."_

_I turn about to face her and grab her roughly by the elbows, "What choice is that, Cora? My life is not my own. 'Tis your's." Releasing her, I turn away ashamed by the strength with which I had gripped her. She would be bruised, bruised by my hands. "You will not change my heart, though you hold it."_

_I hear her hair shift softly about her shoulders as she nods and reflects sadly, "You always were stubborn."_

_I wheel back around to her in surprise and see that my mother, Wah-ta-wa, has taken Cora's place. She takes my face in her calloused hands and rises on tiptoe to kiss my forehead. Then she gives me a motherly squeeze of the hand and the dream fades and my eyes open._

Chingachgook's deep voice falls softly on my ears, "The moon comes now, my son."

I sit up dazedly as my father moves off to wake the major and I inadvertently glance at Cora and see that she has woken. I had not loved her when I lay down to sleep, but now I know that I with certainty that I would give my life willingly for her's.

"Who comes?" The major demands loudly, startling me out of my reverie, "Speak! friend or enemy?"

"Friend," replies the low voice of Chingachgook; who, pointing upwards towards the sky immediately added, "moon comes, and white man's fort far—far off; time to move, when sleep shuts both eyes of the Frenchman!"

"You say true! Call up your friends, and bridle the horses, while I prepare my own companions for the march!"

"We are awake, Duncan," Alice murmurs from within the building, "and ready to travel very fast after so refreshing a sleep; but you have watched through the tedious night in our behalf, after having endured so much fatigue the live-long day!"

"Say, rather, I would have watched, but my treacherous eyes betrayed me; twice have I proved myself unfit for the trust I bear."

"Nay, Duncan, deny it not," interrupts the smiling girl, issuing from the shadows of the building into the light of the moon; "I know you to be a heedless one, when self is the object of your care, and but too vigilant in favor of others. Can we not tarry here a little longer, while you find the rest you need? Cheerfully, most cheerfully, will Cora and I keep the vigils, while you, and all these brave men, endeavor to snatch a little sleep!"

Pressing my lips together to avoid smiling, I catch Cora's eye and raise a hand in greeting. She returns the gesture with an amused half-smile as she walks over to the picketed horses.

"If shame could cure me of my drowsiness, I should never close an eye again," says the uneasy white youth, gazing at Alice. "It is but too true, that after leading you into danger by my heedlessness, I have not even the merit of guarding your pillows as should become a soldier."

"No one but Duncan himself should accuse Duncan of such a weakness. Go, then, and sleep; believe me, neither of us, weak girls as we are, will betray our watch."

I shake my head at the playful folly exhibited by the two lovers. Then I hear it, the light, careless tread of an Indian. I start to my feet, straining my ears to hear more clearly. Three men's light footsteps I hear in the stillness,—no, not three, ten—I hear ten.

"Hark," exclaims Chingachgook softly from my side.

"The Mohicans hear an enemy!" Whispers Hawkeye, who, by this time, in common with the whole party, is awake and stirring. "They scent danger in the wind!"

"God forbid!" Exclaims the major. "Surely we have had enough of bloodshed!"

While he speaks, the young soldier seizes his rifle, and advancing towards the front, prepares to defend those he attended.

"'Tis some creature of the forest prowling around us in quest of food," he says, in a whisper, fain to pretend the foe nonexistent and trying alleviate the danger.

"Hist!" returns the ever attentive scout; "'tis man; even I can now tell his tread, poor as my senses are when compared to an Indian's! That scampering Huron has fallen in with one of Montcalm's outlying parties, and they have struck upon our trail. I shouldn't like, myself, to spill more human blood in this spot," he adds, looking around with anxiety on his features, at the dim objects by which we are surrounded; "but what must be, must! Lead the horses into the block-house, Uncas; and, friends, do you follow to the same shelter. Poor and old as it is, it offers a cover, and has rung with the crack of a rifle afore to-night!"

**Author's Note:**

> The song Wah-ta-wa sings is based on Scotland Will Rise by (?). I have changed the words a bit and left out the choruses and the and third verse. If you liked this, you might also like my story The Last Mohican Sagamore (if you haven't already read it.).


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